Lenovo's Android tablets tend to be affordable low to mid-priced products, with the exception of the ThinkPad Tablet and the convertible Lenovo IdeaTab S2110. The IdeaTab A2109 is a budget-priced 9" Android 4.0 tablet with decent features given the $299 list price and $259 street price. The A2109, not to be confused with the IdeaTab S2109 we reviewed a few months ago, has a 1280 x 800 display and a 1.2GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 quad core CPU. It has 16 gigs of internal storage, a gig of RAM, a microSD card slot and a micro HDMI port. Not too shabby for the price, and it's definitely worth a look if you're on a tight budget and want a larger display than the Nexus 7.

Viewing angles aren't a strong point however, though the display is sharp and colorful if you don't move 45 degrees off axis in any direction. The display has 310 nits of brightness, which is decent though not as impressive as the 400+ on the IdeaTab S2110. Compared to the grainy, low resolution displays on some no-name budget tablets, it's pretty darned good. But clearly it's not meant to compete with higher end $500 tablets.

Speed is good, and the tablet scored 4048 in the Quadrant benchmark and 1753 in Sunspider. Some faster Tegra 3 tablets score 5,000 on Quadrant, but score similarly in Sunspider. Since this is a Tegra 3 tablet, you can play Tegra Zone games enhanced for that CPU/GPU combo. We did notice an occasional frame drop in some of the most demanding games, but nothing we'd call unplayable.

The Lenovo IdeaTab A2109 has a front 1 megapixel camera and a mediocre rear 3 megapixel camera. It has aGPS, single band WiFi and Bluetooth. Unlike the S2110, there's no optional keyboard dock and no USB host. It's sold at BestBuy, though you may find it at other locations.